The new mini-series, Encounters, from the production company of Steven Spielberg, Amblin, has climbed the Netflix charts.
Netflix’s official synopsis for the show reads: “Mysterious lights in the sky over Texas and a nuclear power plant in Japan. Spacecrafts over schoolyards in Wales and Zimbabwe. It’s not science fiction – these stories of extraordinary mass sightings are true. Now, with the help of acclaimed filmmakers, the stories of experiencers, top scientists, and military insiders are brought to the screen in this timely and thrilling four-part series that sets aside scepticism to focus on belief, wonder, and the very human impact of encounters with extraterrestrial life.”
Exploring several different encounters with extraterrestrial life across the world, the first episode investigates ‘The Broad Haven Triangle’. This concerns the village of Broad Haven in Wales, which has had 450 reported sightings of extraterrestrials. These include a flying saucer gliding past a guest house, cigar-shaped UFOs spotted by primary school children and 7ft alien figures emerging from hedgerows. Notably, these sightings were reported across just one year, 1977, leading to the Pembrokeshire village being dubbed Britain’s own Bermuda Triangle for alien life.
According to the BBC, the producers of Encounters searched Europe for stories to turn into episodes, with the tale of Broad Haven chosen for its “incredible” nature given the mass of reported sightings. “There [were] hundreds and hundreds of people that said they witnessed something,” Encounters director Yon Motskin told the publication.
He added: “That critical mass with 450 people is huge and also entertaining.” Yon also commented that many who spoke publicly in 1977 about their encounters suffered negatively from doing so, including David Davies, one of the 16 primary school children who claimed to have spotted a UFO flying about their playground.
“What I didn’t enjoy was the attention it brought me,” Davies recalled. “My first four years of secondary school were horrendous, I was getting physically assaulted on an almost daily basis.” He continued: “Most of the time they wanted me to say I hadn’t seen a UFO and that I was lying. But I couldn’t go back on my principles and say I was lying when I wasn’t.”
Perhaps with more validity than many other famous UFO stories, a policeman who dealt with one Broad Haven family after a reported experience noted: “In all of my 26 years service, that’s the most frightened family I’ve come across”.
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin is best known for science fiction hits such as E.T., Back to the Future, Jurassic Park and Men in Black.
